


Work Like A Horse

by AHeartForStories



Series: Mel's Banned Together Bingo [7]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Banned Together Bingo, Canon Disabled Character, Disabled Character, F/M, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III Whump, Hiccup Whump, Hurt Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Phantom Limb Pain, Whump, disabled people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:20:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29115153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AHeartForStories/pseuds/AHeartForStories
Summary: Written for Banned Together Bingo. Set during RttE. When a battle leaves Hiccup exhausted and his leg in pain the next day, it may be time for him to learn that rest is productive, too.
Relationships: Astrid & Fishlegs & Hiccup & Ruffnut & Snotlout & Tuffnut, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Toothless, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson
Series: Mel's Banned Together Bingo [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2032876
Comments: 7
Kudos: 58





	Work Like A Horse

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Banned Together Bingo prompt: "Disabled People"
> 
> Decided to use my free space for this one. This one is a bit more based on a personal experience of mine, too. I guess you could say it's a lesson I'm still trying to learn myself.
> 
> Constructive criticism is appreciated.  
> Enjoy!

"Oh wow, you look terrible!" When that is the first thing Hiccup gets to hear when he greets his friends in the morning, his bad mood understandably gets a little worse.

"Good morning to you, too, Snotlout!" He says to the offending young man and moves to his usual seat at the breakfast table with a limp that is much more pronounced than usual.

Toothless follows closely, much closer than usual, too.

All the Riders have gathered in the clubhouse for breakfast and they watch Hiccup as he limps over. He can feel their gazes on him as he walks.

He settles with a grimace and can't suppress his sigh. It must've been an arduous walk from his hut to here that he probably didn't let Toothless make for him with how stubborn he is.

Their breakfast has come to a bit of a halt, the Riders' attention taken by Hiccup.

"Are you sure you should be up?" Astrid takes the initiative and asks what they're all thinking. They could've brought him his breakfast if he couldn't get up.

"Yeah, of course." Hiccup responds, as if that should be obvious even with the pain he's clearly in.

"But are you sure? Because Snotlout isn't wrong, you do look terrible." Astrid admits, much to his dismay.

There's a tired look to him and he's even paler than usual. He appears to be cold, too, another sign of his exhaustion.

"I just overworked my leg during yesterday's battle and it kept me up at night. It's nothing I can't deal with." Hiccup explains. He knew when his leg kept hurting when he went to bed that he was in trouble. He drank a willow bark infused tea for it before turning in, but it wasn't enough.

"Isn't that just more reason to stay in bed?" Tuffnut asks. A bad leg day on top of having barely slept and after a battle? That is not a good combination.

"No, it's not. I have things I need to do and I can't do them when I'm stuck in bed." Hiccup rejects the notion on grounds of being too busy.

"So your solution to overworking your leg is working some more?" Snotlout asks, rightfully bringing up the ridiculousness of that thought process.

"I never said it was a solution, Snotlout, but I can't just stay in bed all day!" Hiccup retorts. He knows working will not solve his pain problem, but in his eyes, rest isn't an option either.

"Uh, yeah, you can," Ruffnut argues and she doesn't need any points to back her statement up.

It must be a controversial statement, judging by the way Hiccup is looking at her.

"It might even be beneficial to work from your bed! I know how much you like beneficial work!" Fishlegs brings his own effort to the table, nodding encouragingly as he tries to convince his fellow dragon nerd.

Hiccup, however, isn't quite having it.

"Listen, guys, thank you for your concern, but I'm going to be just fine. Besides, I can't forge from my bed." And he can't keep talking either, his tongue is getting tired.

Astrid sighs and relents.

"Okay, fine, but I'm getting you your breakfast." She says and gets up, taking his plate away before he can.

If Hiccup Haddock wants to be stubborn, let him be stubborn. At the very least, they can help where they can.

Hiccup doesn't argue with that and maybe he is a little grateful he doesn't need to stand up.

* * *

"So what was it you said about forging?" Snotlout asks his friend not even an hour later, leaning against a post with his arms crossed in front of him.

Hiccup regards him with a look of disinterest in whatever the other has to say as he sits on a chair.

"Well, I'm not in bed, am I?" He asks and Snotlout supposes that he isn't. This technically means he's not going back on his own words.

He's sharpening an axe, but he's using a whetstone instead of his grinding wheel just so he won't need to stand for this. His bad leg, still wearing his prosthetic, throbs.

Toothless is here, lying nearby, but his back faces Hiccup.

"Leave him, he's being a grump." Hiccup tells Snotlout as his eyes fall on the brooding Night Fury.

"Is he? Or did he try to stop you and are you being too stubborn?" Snotlout asks, figuring that Toothless must be mad at Hiccup for refusing to go back to bed.

Hiccup doesn't answer to that, evidently too tired to as he continues sharpening the axe.

"Hiccup,"

"Snotlout," He pushes himself up to his one foot, sparing his stump as much weight as he can. "Are you here for a reason or just to bother me while I work?"

"Obviously to bother you, why else would I come all the way here?" Snotlout asks, only teasing playfully.

"So that means you can do another patrol then?"

Snotlout's gaze widens.

"Uh, no?"

"Obviously you can. You can have all this free time, so you must be bored." Hiccup insists. If he didn't have free time, he wouldn't be here to bother him, would he?

"You know what? I just remembered that I still have things I need to do." Snotlout suddenly remembers, sheepishly.

"You do, do you? Then I suggest you get to it." Hiccup suggests and Snotlout nods in agreement. Maybe he's being a little harsh, but he doesn't have the energy to keep arguing with his friends about this.

"Uh yeah, I should. Good plan, uh.. Bye!" Snotlout agrees with his friend and turns around to leave before he has a heap of chores he has to do. He knows Hiccup always has some particularly unpleasant ones for his Riders to do if they don't listen. It's not for nothing that they call him a tyrant.

With Snotlout gone, Toothless grumbles disapprovingly in the background.

"Oh you, don't even start."

* * *

"Has anybody seen Hiccup for the rest of the morning?" Usually, Astrid doesn't worry quite as quickly as she already does when it comes to Hiccup, but with him in the kind of state that he's in combined with his stubbornness issues, she feels like he has every right to be worried.

Ruff and Tuff shake their heads, not having seen their leader at all these past couples of hours.

"I saw him working at the forge." Snotlout mentions, causing Astrid to sigh. Because of course, Hiccup would blacksmith today of all days. It's the most strenuous of all the chores he could possibly do, so why wouldn't he, overworked and tired and in pain, do some blacksmithing?

"I think I saw him heading towards the arena minutes ago." Fishlegs then says and since that can only mean he must intent on practicing, the second most strenuous thing he could do, Astrid can only sound her frustration.

"Okay, that's it. We're going to get him before he gets himself hurt." She finally decides and the other Riders follow her when she goes down to the arena.

"You mean before he gets hurt even worse." Tuffnut states matter of factly.

"Yes, Tuff, before he gets himself hurt even worse," Astrid says.

* * *

At the very least, they don't find Hiccup practicing his skills in battle. Instead, they find him standing in front of the wooden board where battle strategies or practice runs are hung on. He's keeping his weight off his stump, the only mercy he's been giving his leg thus far.

He probably planned on planning something, but that plan seemingly fell through when Toothless apparently said "no". Understandably enough, he's a little bit sick of Hiccup's refusal to rest. He lets Hiccup get away with a lot, but apparently not this.

"Bud, come on, cut it out!" Hiccup tells the dragon in annoyance when the dragon headbutts him away from whatever strategy he has posted on the board.

He evades another one, leg giving out and incidentally causing him to grab for Toothless to keep from falling.

Toothless isn't the only one to catch him as Astrid grabs for him, too, taking his arm and helping him steady himself.

It's a brief startle for everyone, they all look like they're holding their breath for a good solid moment. Hiccup does as well, but it's more out of pain than a fright.

He clings to both Toothless and Astrid, attempting to recover while tears spring to his eyes, a natural response to the hurt.

The Riders gather around him as he recovers, listening to him groan.

"Hiccup, I think Bud is trying to tell you something. And not just Bud." Astrid speaks up when she can.

"Well, maybe Bud should let it rest and leave me be." Hiccup responds in turn, taking his hands back and limping back over to the board.

"Or maybe the Bud's bud should listen to him and let his obsession with work and Viggo go for the day?" Snotlout asks, but he doesn't sound as sassy as one would've assumed. Any and all sass has left him the second he saw Hiccup nearly fall.

Why does he feel the need to be so stubborn?

"I'm not obsessed with work! Or with Viggo!" Hiccup counters, turning to face his friends, but they all know he's lying and they all look at him as such. It's a penetrating gaze that conveys the strong message of "really, Hiccup?" And Hiccup feels it nagging at him.

"Okay, maybe I'm obsessing a little bit, but it's not like we're not doing this for a good cause!" He defends himself and gestures at the board.

"And you exhausting yourself, is that for a good cause?" Astrid questions, more in compassion than the annoyance she previously felt. It doesn't feel good to see him work himself ragged.

"Well, obviously it is. I'm figuring out how we can counter those dragonproof ships." Hiccup informs them and they can see a rough plan of one such ship on the board. It's the upper view and the side view, drawn as impeccably as his memory allows. There are little notes here and there, questions about the reinforcement being the same on the entire hull of the ship or if it needs to be thinner in some places.

"Ah, right, those. Should they even be able to float?" Tuffnut asks his sister softly.

"I don't know, ask Hiccup or Fishlegs later," Ruffnut replies.

"Those ships you can figure out tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or the day after that? You know, when you're better?" Astrid asks him, wishing he wasn't so insistent.

"Yeah, when I'm "better"." There's a tone to his voice that she doesn't like to hear. It sounds almost mocking. Not sassy, not sarcastic, mocking, a tone they haven't heard too often from him and that makes it such a surprise.

The other Riders decide to stay in the background as Astrid continues.

"Yes, when you're better. And you're never going to get better if you-"

"Oh, there's never going to be a "better", Astrid!" But then Hiccup interrupts her. It's the exhaustion getting to him and they can't really blame him for that. Though, they've told him again and again to rest, egging him on certainly hasn't helped.

"My leg is always going to hurt after a battle or a hard day, the pain will always drag and drag, and that just means I'll be wasting everybody's time. Time that could've been used on something a lot more productive than lying around doing nothing. Especially in the middle of a war!" Hiccup argues, a slight temper flare in the midst of it all. It certainly doesn't do him any good as he feels guilty for yelling immediately after.

But Astrid isn't mad for being yelled at, Hiccup the only one who can really get away with such a thing. Instead, she shakes her head in sympathy, her hands on her hips.

Is that what this is all about? Hiccup's belief that him resting isn't productive?

Well, Stoick has always been a hardworking man as well and Hiccup has inherited that from him. It seems like the Haddocks are a clan with a hard work ethic, one that might not entirely be beneficial to someone like Hiccup, who might need to slow it down once in a while.

But then, his grandfather was an amputee as well, wasn't he? Hiccup might feel pressured to do better specifically because of that.

Astrid walks closer, deciding that maybe it's time for a little trip down memory lane.

"Hiccup, what did I tell you a little while back when we were in need of a break and you wanted to keep working?" She asks, laying a hand on his arm.

"Ah, right, when we thought Hiccup's tyrannical behavior had driven our dragons mad, but really it were a bunch of dragon parasites." Snotlout remembers, but not fondly. The vacation itself was nice, though, for however little it lasted.

"You told me that you guys work as hard as you can, that you will work until your backs break and your hands are raw, but that you need breaks once in a while, a chance to relax. But we've been doing that, haven't we? I haven't been pushing you guys as hard or you guys would've told me about it." Brushing past what Snotlout said, Hiccup answers Astrid's question.

"Well, we have, but have you? I also told you that you can expect us to be you, because you work so hard and we've all seen it." Astrid says.

"Frankly, it's kind of intimidating." Snotlout chimes in again. "And it makes the rest of us look bad."

"Then what do you expect me to do? Just sit around and do nothing?" Hiccup shrugs as he asks.

"If I'm being honest? Yes! We want you to sit around and do nothing for a change! Take your prosthetic off for the day and sit on a chair or lie in bed. You can draw or read a book-"

"Or have a very detailed daydream that takes you on an epic quest across the world, defeat enemies, make friends, find out that you're magic, I can go on and on! They're really fun." Tuffnut suggests helpfully.

"Our point is, rest is just as productive as "real" work is. Especially with your leg." Astrid hopes she's getting through to him. He's listening, at least.

"But I can't just keep putting things off while I rest either. I still have so many things I need to do." Hiccup reasons.

"Uh, you don't need to? You were sharpening an axe earlier while sitting down, you can do other stuff like that, too." Snotlout reminds him.

"Yeah, like your map! Or battle strategies, you can plan those while sitting down! You can help the Edge's dragons from a chair, too." Fishlegs helps out, pointing out some other things Hiccup can do.

"I guess?" He sighs and shrugs.

"Listen, Hiccup, you work like a horse and that's something that I've always admired about you. There are many things you can say about Hiccup Haddock the Third, but not that he isn't a hard worker." It's a bit of a confession as even before Toothless she liked seeing him work in the forge. What he did, what he still does, is a very important job and keeps their village safe as he and Gobber provide them with weapons in the past and now with saddles for dragons as well.

She comes to stand in front of him, both hands landing on his pauldrons.

"But you also need to learn when it's time to take a step back and slow down. Like you need to do today, so you and your leg can recover properly and be ready for the next battle." She has to use their war with Viggo as an example.

"No, you don't understand, I will never get "better". I'll have good days, and so far they have been mostly good, but bad days are always going to be like this and I can't just decide to drop everything every time a bad day comes along." But Hiccup steps back from Astrid, throwing his hands around in defeat.

That's just his reality and it's not going to get better when he inevitably has to lead his village someday.

"Okay, maybe I don't understand what you mean," After all, she's not the one missing most of a lower left leg. "But you know what I do understand? Work and working yourself to death. And I've been there before, Hiccup, it's not good."

"Please, take care of yourself. You will never be able to beat Viggo if you don't take care of yourself." Hiccup sighs again when she brings up Viggo again. He's been doing that quite a bit, sighing.

"Yeah, you're right, maybe I do need to take it easy." But finally, he concedes.

"Okay, great! That's settled then!" Ruffnut comes forward with a chair. She left the group to go get one, returning quickly to plop it down behind him while Toothless gently pushes his Rider back to make him sit on it.

Hiccup doesn't fight it, dropping down, almost too tired to react to the jolt of pain running up through his leg from his stump.

Tuffnut comes forward to remove his prosthetic, doing it carefully, and placing it down next to him on the ground. Hiccup can have it back when he has to get up, which he doesn't need to with Toothless willing to take him everywhere.

Hiccup doesn't stop him either and leans with his elbows on his knees.

"Now, we all have to get back to work, will you be okay here?" Astrid asks him as she's confident he'll stay put now. For the next ten minutes, at least.

He nods, he'll be just fine.

"I'll stay here and help Hiccup figure out Viggo's dragonproof ships." Fishlegs decides while the others turn to leave.

"Okay, we'll see you two at lunch in a little while," Astrid tells the two.

"As a matter of fact, we'll bring lunch to you!" Ruffnut says as a picnic is always fun to have, even in their arena.

"Sounds good." Hiccup replies softly.

As the Riders leave, he and Fishlegs wave them off. Soon enough, the only ones remaining in the arena are them and Toothless.

Fishlegs turns to face the board with the plans on it to see how far Hiccup has gotten. His sketches are as clean and impeccable as always and the little notes help, too.

But he takes a glance at his friend.

"Are you feeling a little better?" He asks.

"A little." Hiccup admits, stroking his Bud's hide as the Night Fury has curled up around the chair. He has him completely surrounded, wordlessly telling him that he will stay put.

Hiccup doesn't mind anymore. He should rest, after all, and he'll only be better for it.


End file.
